Transcript schizophrenia

schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
• This is a mental disorder that causes an array of side effects.
• This effects every aspect of a person’s daily functions.
• Medical professionals don’t know for sure what causes this disorder,
but many speculate on it.
Symptoms
• Behavioral: social isolation, disorganized behavior, aggression,
agitation, compulsive behavior, excitability, hostility, repetitive
movements, self-harm, or lack of restraint
• Cognitive: thought disorder, delusion, amnesia, belief that an ordinary
event has special and personal meaning, belief that thoughts aren't
one's own, disorientation, memory loss, mental confusion, or
slowness in activity
• Psychological: hallucination, paranoia, hearing voices, depression,
fear, persecutory delusion, or religious delusion
Symptoms
• The most common symptoms are hallucinations, hearing voices, and
cognitive disorders.
• The symptoms vary from person to person. This disorder is famous for
its ability to cause people to completely lose their sanity.
• This is a non-curable disorder, but some people with minor cases and
overcome it.
Symptoms
• People with schizophrenia begin to spiral downward and gain
symptoms when they reach a certain age, or stress level.
• They start to lose grip with life and isolate themselves.
• Due to the nature of the disorder the symptoms and ability to cope
vary from person to person.
• Some people are high functioning, and some people are extremely
low functioning, some people experience slight symptoms, and some
people experience extreme symptoms.
Causes
• The causes of this disorder vary, and are often speculated on.
• An imbalance of neurotransmitters, and dopamine are the most
common cause for this disorder.
People also attribute the reason to many things like: Childhood abuse,
childhood physical harm (concussions, brain damage), interaction with
certain substances, and social isolation.
Another huge cause for schizophrenia is genetics, as it tends to run in
the family.
How are people diagnosed?
• People are often diagnosed after long term contact with a therapist,
or psych expert. This is why cases in children are extremely rare and
not formally diagnosed. Most people also tend to develop the
disorder later in their life.
• People often misdiagnose this disorder. Like bipolar disorder it’s misportrayed in society and very often misused. People also commonly
confuse schizophrenia with schizoid disorder, which is must different.
List of people that have had schizophrenia:
• People with schizophrenia aren’t predisposed to violence, but it does happen.
• Tom Harrell, Jazz Musician
• Meera Popkin, Broadway Star
• John Nash - Mathematician/Nobel Prize Winner
• Albert Einstein's son - Eduard Einstein
• Dr. James Watson's son (Dr. Watson is co-discover of DNA and Nobel Prize winner)
• Alan Alda's Mother (Alan Alda is the famous TV actor from the series MASH)
How is it treated?
• The disorder used to be treated with several different drug oriented,
and cognitive treatments.
• They used to treat people with shock therapy, water boarding, and
other forms of torture. But people no longer get treated with these
methods due to their inefficiency and inhumanity.
• Modern treatments: Anti-psych, anti-tremor, They are also treated
with therapy and institutionalization.
• Treatment is lifelong and never ends. When the symptoms do subside
they still require constant observation.
First generation Anti-psych drugs
• Drugs with major and extreme psychological affects and changes
• Chlorpromazine
• Fluphenazine
• Haloperidol
• Perphenazine
• Some people can go into extreme psychological breaks that will turn
into full on episodes. These episodes are a magnified instance of their
everyday symptoms. Hospitalization is the only treatment for these
episodes, to ensure proper safety, nutrition, and surveillance.